Website Usability, Part V: Don’t Annoy the User

It seems obvious, but many sites seem to have a problem with it: if you want your users to keep coming back, don’t annoy them! Here are a few common-sense things to avoid.

No unsolicited windows. If you use pop-ups on your site, half your users will be using a modern browser that blocks them, and you’ll annoy the rest. Find a better way to get attention.

Arrange the website logically. Don’t make the user think about how to find something; it should be obvious.

Provide a search; we mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Today’s users don’t want to click around looking for things; they want to jump straight to their target.

Be consistent. Again, this is something we mentioned before. If your navigation bar is on the left on your homepage, it should be on the left on every other page as well. A user attempting to search should know exactly where the search box is without having to, well, search for it!

Don’t make the user do work that the computer can do; one particularly annoying example is when the same information must be input in several places.

Avoid making the user remember things. If two or more items must be compared, place them side by side.

Design efficient pages. Even if you expect most users to be on broadband, remember that large images still take time to load, and a bored user is a lost user!

Don’t make users lose their work! If a page must time out, warn the user and give him a chance to extend the timer or save his work.

Design webpages so that they can be printed; long, complex documents in particular are often printed for later reading. If needed, the page can use different style sheets for viewing and printing.

When users must wait for something to complete, give them a way to track progress; for particularly long tasks, such as large downloads, provide an estimate of how long the task will take.